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Emmanuel Macron says Europeans should stop relying on social media for their news and turn back to traditional public media. Speaking in Paris on Wednesday, he said people were “completely wrong” to use social networks for information and should instead depend on journalists and established outlets. Social platforms, he argued, are driven by a ‘process of maximum excitement” designed to “maximize advertising revenue,” a system he said is “destroying the foundations of democratic debate.” He accused X of being “dominated by far-right content” and added that the platform was no longer neutral because its owner had “decided to take part in the democratic struggle and in the international reactionary movement.” TikTok, he warned, was no less dangerous.

Henry Kissinger once complained: “Who do I call when I want to speak to Europe?” Today the answer would be Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s first female Prime Minister, who has emerged as the most important leader in the European Union. No Italian leader has filled this unofficial role before: it is usually reserved for the heads of the bloc’s two largest economies, Germany and France. Yet Meloni has capitalized on the weakness of their leadership. French President Emmanuel Macron may delude himself that he is Napoleon or Jupiter, but in reality he is the deeply unpopular head of a lame-duck government. To borrow a phrase from Donald Trump, he doesn’t “have the cards.” Meanwhile, Germany’s Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, heads up a flimsy coalition.

Viktor Orbán has just won another election. The Hungarian prime minister has secured a hefty majority in his country’s legislative elections, and in his victory speech, Orbán revealed once again that he is a thorn: in the side of Europe most obviously but, if need be, in the side of all. I’ll leave for others the discussion of Hungarian democracy — whether Orbán has so manipulated national life that his continued electoral successes are unimpressive, even fraudulent. But Orbán, in his own mind, thought an “overwhelming force” ranged against him. “We never had so many opponents,” Orbán said.

The simplest description of the war in Ukraine is this: stalemate, accompanied by constant, deadly bombardment. For the Ukrainians, that bombardment is aimed at the Russian military. For the Russians, it is aimed mostly at civilian targets, a deliberate strategy that is also a war crime. Russian artillery shells, cluster bombs and cruise missiles are killing tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians and destroying their homes, schools and businesses. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s counterattack is imposing huge, irreplaceable losses on Russia’s army, killing soldiers, destroying their equipment and liquidating incompetent military leaders who come to the front to untangle the mess. Russia’s initial war plan failed, abysmally.